Electronic consumer products for playing back media have to be enabled to readily access a media data stored on media storage devices. In particular, an increasing variety and amount of media data have to be accessed by contemporary media players in order satisfy the demands of discriminating customers.
In the art, network attached storage (NAS) multimedia servers have been introduced in order to allow access to multiple media data files. NAS is designed as an easy and self-contained solution for sharing data files over a network. NAS servers usually contain one or more hard disks that may be arranged into logical, redundant storage containers. Alternatively, USB hub connected media storage devices are provided in the art in order to allow media player access to media data.
However, both the NAS system and the USB-hub based approach undesirably restrict the number of accessible USB media data storage devices. However, the demand for accessing a huge amount of media data by media players will further increase in the future.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide for a multimedia server allowing access to an increased number of USB media data storage devices and, thus, media files, as compared to the art.